Imagine an Antigua where the Transport Board owned its own fleet of taxis, took all the prime spots at Heritage Quay, and then decided if you got a taxi plate.
Or where the Central Board of Health ran its own chain of restaurants, took the best spots in town, and then sent its own inspectors to decide if your food stall was allowed to stay open.
You wouldn't call that a regulator. You'd call it a cartel with a government seal on it.
And yet, in St. Paul's, that is exactly what we have been living with for forty years.
The NPA doesn't just regulate the market. It competes in the market it regulates.
The Three Hats the NPA Wears
The National Parks Authority sits on top of one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in Antigua and Barbuda — the Dockyard, the harbours, the heights, the coastline. And inside that footprint, it wears three hats at the same time.
The Licensor
Under the Trading Regulations 2014, the NPA decides who is allowed to trade inside the Park — and who is not.
The Fee-Setter
It decides what every operator pays — entry fees, mooring fees, anchoring fees, event fees, garbage fees, licence fees.
The Competitor
And it runs a hotel, a restaurant, a marina, events, and other commercial operations that directly compete with the very businesses it licenses.
So when a private operator applies to run a tour, hold an event, or open a concession, they are not applying to a neutral referee. They are applying to the other team in the match — and asking that team to decide whether they are allowed to play.
In Any Other Industry, This Would Be Illegal
Every other sector in this country has understood the same basic principle: the regulator cannot also be the competitor.
This is not a loophole. It is the design. The National Parks Act gives the Authority the power to regulate and the power to trade. The Act never says how one is supposed to be insulated from the other. So it isn't.
The Predictable Result
When the referee owns the opposing team, the game stops being fair. This isn't about cartoonish corruption — it's about a structure that inevitably pushes in only one direction.
- › Fees drift upwards. The regulator has no competitor forcing it to keep prices fair. It sets the price, collects the price, and keeps the revenue. In 2025, the High Court found that one entire category of those fees — the Falmouth berthing charge — was being collected with no legal authority at all.
- › Licensing becomes a gatekeeping tool. When the NPA has a commercial interest in a slot — an event, a concession, a mooring — independent applicants aren't competing on merit. They are begging for permission from the very body that wants to take their place.
- › Enforcement tilts one way. The Trading and General Regulations carry fines of up to $5,000 and prison terms of up to six months. Those powers are pointed outward, at private operators. There is no equivalent mechanism when the NPA itself oversteps — as the AIG ruling proved.
- › Private investment walks away. The yacht-industry tensions that summoned Cabinet in May 2025 did not appear out of nowhere. They are the natural endpoint of a system where the operators who generate the value are regulated, taxed, and out-competed by the exact same office.
You cannot be the referee and the striker. You cannot be the judge and the defendant.
The Fix: Structural Separation
The solution isn't complicated. It's the exact same standard every other regulated industry in this country already follows.
- 01 Split the NPA into two bodies. A statutory Regulator — licensing, rule-making, enforcement, answerable to Parliament. And a statutory Operator — concessions, events, commercial activity, competing on the same terms as every other business in the Park.
- 02 A public licence register. Every licence granted, denied, renewed or revoked should be published — with reasons, with the applicant's name, and with the name of the Board member who signed it. The same sunlight we demand of Cabinet, we demand of the Board.
- 03 An independent appeal. An applicant refused a licence or hit with a fee should have access to a fast, independent review — not forced to spend four years in the High Court to prove what the NPA already knew.
- 04 A constitutional standard. No statutory authority in Antigua and Barbuda should ever again be permitted to regulate and compete in the same market without a firm, published firewall between the two functions.
The NPA was created to protect a national treasure. It has become the largest landlord, the strictest licensor, and the most aggressive commercial operator in one of the most valuable corners of Antigua and Barbuda — all out of the same office.
Then it wonders why the private sector has stopped trusting it. Why the courts have started ruling against it. Why Cabinet has to be summoned to calm the tensions it created.
This is not an accident. It is the direct, predictable result of letting one office play every position on the field.
Regulators protect the public.
Operators run a business.
You cannot be both.
